TROUBL

An article in today’s Los Angeles Times highlighted an issue that I’ve considered for some years now; an issue that saddens me to explore. The article was about the HIV drug market becoming profitable. Click here to read:

From the article:
“The rise in HIV profits is happening for several reasons: Many of those on HIV drugs today are expected to stay on them for years — if not decades — and the trend is to treat the disease earlier. A new generation of once-a-day pills has made the disease easier to treat.

At the same time, hopes for an HIV vaccine have faded and rates of new infections in some communities are climbing after years of stabilizing.”

When rising rates of infection create rising profits and when easy-to-take drugs make HIV seem like a chronic illness, what happens to our prevention efforts? What happens when it becomes more beneficial to allow the virus to exist?

Realize how drugs like “the day after pill” have affected society, erasing the fear of getting pregnant and shifting people’s ideas of unprotected sex.

Though much of America’s HIV education has worked to illustrate the seriousness of the virus, people still act like it’s not critical. Survival stories like that of Magic Johnson have fueled the belief that HIV is a problem of the past.

There are the men and women who say condoms, one of the most reliable ways to project from infection, are a nuisance. Our culture’s it-won’t-happen-to-me attitude keeps people from realizing that life threatening STD’s are the real nuisance.

Our healthcare culture compounds this problem because instead of working to prevent us from getting sick, we work to treat symptoms. This way of thinking, sold to us by American corporations, keeps us addicted to and dependent on pharmaceuticals.

If these trends continue, what will the global epidemic we called HIV become? Will HIV vaccination be given out to schoolchildren? How many illegal HIV drugs will pop up? Will celebrities have to adjust their HIV philanthropy?

Teach me…